This'n fer RoaringBull....

[mongrel]

Bull! I say, BULL! Stop lickin' the locoweed and trot over here!

This is the first of the three rifles I promised you. The others are approaching completion. No, no peeking 'til they're done....

Walnut stock, plain-jane brass hardware from Dixie and Numrich, barrel bought che-e-a-ap off our own trapperj -- 27" (lost an inch -- frozen breechplug -- hacksaw solved that problem -- bore in excellent shape) CVA Hunter Hawken barrel, lock cobbled together from misc. parts by Yours Truly. Guesstimate of total cash outlay, for the "on the cheap" police, maybe $75.00 tops. All steel fire-blued except for the barrel, which has been browned.

Sounds like you have no shortage of guns now for them rugrats to plink with, but you can add this'n to the pile.

Any improvement in my pictures is thanks to Ironwood -- still working on that!

Oh, by the way, forgot to mention -- length of pull 12 7/8", to give the little guys something they can get a decent hold on.

[RoaringBull]

All of the others will pale in comparison...they are all factory rifles.....
I had been planning on letting the group store the rifles instead of at my place,

BUT, these three will be stored at the Bull Pen between shoots!!

VERY awesome work sir.  We are making the garden grow!!

[Chaffa Hosa]

Mongrel
Did you make the stock or is it factory

[mongrel]

Mongrel
Did you make the stock or is it factory

No, I cut that from a plank and started with chisels (see below -- same rifle two days earlier), went to a hand plane on the larger, straighter areas, then rasped to roughly final shape. After that successively finer discs on a random-orbit sander, starting with 80 grit and finishing with 320. Items like the lock and sideplate panels get outlined with a 3/8" chisel and rough-formed with a 3/8" round rasp, then evened on the edges and smoothed with the sander. It helps an awful lot to have been using power sanders of various types since I was young, because they will erase large chunks of a stock's detailing and contours in seconds if applied with too much pressure or at the wrong angle.

Purist builders will cringe, and I'll be the first to say there's nothing historically correct about my way of getting the job done, but rifles like this I build for speed and final appearance. On the occasions I offer this type of gun for sale, the consumer group I aim at (pun unintended, but it works....) can't afford to pay for traditional methods and the time they entail.

[Lady of the Woods]

euuuuuuuueeeeee, dat's a purdy one! them bulls'll be shootin bullseyes!
z

[karwelis]

well she shure is a looker!

karwelis

[Chaffa Hosa]

It would take me a couple of weeks to cut out a stock
That is a nice clean no nonsense little rifle I like it

[mongrel]

Thank you all. You wouldn't believe (actually, sadly, you probably would, but there's an agreement that we won't speak ill of other BP forums here) the flak I've taken for building inexpensive rifles. I'm cheapening the sport, I've been told. People who won't make the commitment to buy "quality" (translate: expensive) work aren't needed or wanted.

Well, I have an eye always on the future, and RoaringBull is trying via black powder and the Word to provide for something better in that regard than the elitists seem to be interested in. Easily half the guns I've built have ended up in the hands of kids, as this one and its two companions will do. I not only get the satisfaction of simply building them but of knowing the use they will be put to.

Hmm, I'll get dizzy if I stand on that soapbox any longer. Sorry ;).

[fd-ems-emt]

Good looking,,

Bull,,  lets hear a range report when you get.

[windwalker_au]

hats of to you mongrel that is awesome.
bernie :)

[hawkchucker]

i like the color

[hawkchucker]

it looks even better wen u hold it

[RoaringBull]

Did you have a part in these rifles too, Joe?

[mongrel]

It would take me a couple of weeks to cut out a stock
That is a nice clean no nonsense little rifle I like it

"No nonsense" has a lot going for it.

This sort of gun is the modern equivalent of the trade rifles produced by makers such as Leman and Henry. I'm not suggesting it looks even remotely like any of their products, only that it's built to last and be sold for the lowest possible cost. Back in the day even a poor man could afford one -- maybe more -- of Leman or Henry's bottom-dollar rifles. Today, cheap and sturdy means a rugrat maybe gets something to shoot that otherwise his/her folks couldn't have afforded. Plus, hey, kids are rough on everything they touch. A rifle like this can take it and if it gets dinged up some, or even dinged up badly, the shock to the wallet doesn't cause a chain-reaction heart seizure.

Plus, man, they're fun to build. It's almost a game to see how quickly and with how few actually bought parts I can churn one of these pups out.

[FrankG]

Nice little rifle Mike !